Switching to maintenance all at once? What should I expect?

cpl4118

Hi there,

I decided to switch to maintenance as I am at a normal BMI. I didn’t follow advice I have heard of slowly increasing the calories, I just simply started eating at maintenance one day after months of eating at a caloric deficit.

I’ve started lifting so I am eating a high protein diet at my maintenance calories to lose fat and build muscle. I am lifting 4x a week and I previously was lifting 1-2 a week with a bigger focus on cardio.

I know I’m going to gain water weight from the sudden increase in calories, but how long do you think it will take to even out? I just don’t want to gain fat.

sijomial

Personally as I eat a relatively high carb diet I don't see a bounce up in water weight when I switch straight from deficit to maintenance, I simply stop losing weight.

The exception might be following on from a very intense pre-event training period (long distance cycling) and weight cut - I might then see a small weight loss despite the calorie increase as the training stress reduces.

After a prolonged and/or big deficit you might even find your maintenance calories turn out to be higher than calculated. Following my initial weight loss I found my maintenance levels very quickly but then after a couple of months started to lose slowly again. Possibly a little AT reversing itself? Possibly activity levels or exercise performance picked up?

TavistockToad

cpl4118 wrote: »

Hi there,

I decided to switch to maintenance as I am at a normal BMI. I didn’t follow advice I have heard of slowly increasing the calories, I just simply started eating at maintenance one day after months of eating at a caloric deficit.

I’ve started lifting so I am eating a high protein diet at my maintenance calories to lose fat and build muscle. I am lifting 4x a week and I previously was lifting 1-2 a week with a bigger focus on cardio.

I know I’m going to gain water weight from the sudden increase in calories, but how long do you think it will take to even out? I just don’t want to gain fat.

You're going to gain water weight from the increase in exercise as well.

How large a deficit were you in before maintenance?

lorrpb

How many calories did you add?